Hello everyone! Due to popular demand and frequent questions about where I got my bridesmaids’ dress from, I’ve decided to burden your eyes and mind with a whole story about that. So, once upon a time…

…there was a very unorganised bride. Being engaged for two years automatically means people assume you’ve started your planning from day one and every detail has been sorted at least 10 months before the big date. Yeah…no.

The only thing I was ready with early was my bridal gown – me and my mom went to have a look at couple of dresses without the intention to buy or fall in love with one, but long story short – I got my dress nearly a year before the Big Day.

So far – so good! I had the most important thing and the rest were just details. Oh, how I was wrong.

Picking venue, sorting out the rituals, guest lists…all of that is like a walk in the park compared to the horror of picking bridesmaids dresses! Why – you would wonder…

Let’s start from the beginning. If you have read my post about the bridesmaids’ invitations,you might know that I have five of them. Average number, really. It is worth mentioning, however, that 2 of them are in the UK and 3 – in Bulgaria. Not too bad yet? Okay. One is very tall, another is quite short, third one is a growing teenager, the fourth loses weight in a blink of an eye and the fifth has a bra size every woman will envy. So, try fitting those five people in some form of similar looking dresses. Without all of them being able to try them on.

Now you see my struggle.

And so, it began. My initial idea was to have two short dresses and three long ones. I can assure you, I’ve looked at every possible online store for bridesmaids’ dresses. Wedding boutiques and high street shops. NOTHING matched! I looked at the very popular “multi way” dresses. Another failure. I was ready to just pick dresses in the same colour but different models. Yeah, you’d think the fabrics would match if they are from the same place. Nah-ah. I tried the “palette” strategy. Fail again. Apart from the mostly washed out boring colours and the extremely poor quality, it turned out that most of the dresses are made for 4ft tall people, which, with a 6ft tall bridesmaid, was not an option for me. Custom orders turned out to be tricky as well – nobody could give me good guarantee unless the bridesmaid has personally visited the store so that her measures could be taken. Obviously, the 5 of them being in two different countries, that wasn’t happening.

Two wedding shows later (see the blog posts here and here) I was convinced that my bridesmaids are just going to show up in their pyjamas and that was it. (And they would have been happy about that decision, I can assure you. But no, I was determined to torture them by making them squeeze into matching attire and uncomfortable footwear.)

With Jessica and Lisa, my UK bridesmaids (obviously, Jessica and Lisa are not particularly popular Bulgarian names!?) in the end we went to try some dresses at David’s Bridal shop in Stratford. May I say…NEVER go there on a weekend. Absolutely ridiculous customer service, the consultant wasn’t even listening to what we want and did not bring almost any of the dresses we wanted to see.

But considering my previous lovely experience with the company (I shall be sharing more about that after the wedding), I decided to just take a chance and order dresses from them – here is the moment to mention I did that through their Watford shop – absolutely lovely ladies, can’t recommend them enough!

On their website there is a quite handy size guide, so I made my poor bride squad take their own measures and send them to me. (I did have a slight Bridezilla moment there). Some complicated calculations later, I was ordering over the phone two dresses in size 4 and three dresses in size 6. How did 5 different girls fit into two sizes, I shall never know to this day! (And I really hope I don’t have to edit that post, as I am writing it on the airplane, en route to Bulgaria, with 3 bridesmaids dresses in my luggage, hoping that they will actually fit. Obviously, small alterations are in order.)

Also, a detail worth mentioning – there is waiting time! Yes, your wedding gown is not the only thing that will take time to be delivered. I ordered the bridesmaids’ dresses in the end of February and got an estimate delivery date in the end of June. Luckily, from the shop (David’s Bridal Watford for the win!) they called me earlier and I managed to collect them in the end of May, a whole month earlier than expected, so I can successfully teleport them to Bulgaria.

By the way, very compact dresses – my hand luggage is currently consistent of a small suitcase with the 3 bridesmaids’ dresses, trousers for my mum, two dresses for my aunt, 3 large muslin cloths, a sling and two baby grows for my friend’s kiddo, a packet of treats for the dogs and the cat and my sunglasses. I have no clue how I managed to fit all that – should probably start doing online courses with packing lessons!

Anyway…if you’re reading this, then the dresses fit and the crisis is over! If you’re in a situation like mine, my advice is to just find a reputable shop, that you trust, even if the prices are a little bit higher than the average. I cannot stress enough about what a relief it is to know that your order is going to be exactly what you wanted and the quality that you’ve expected. If you see an online shop where the prices are almost too good to be true, yes, they are. I managed to see some dresses from such places and the quality is outrageous. You wouldn’t want your girls to look ridiculous on your special day, do you?

Mells x

P.S. I will update this post with full photos of the dresses from the wedding.